Mom:Roads will be bad tomorrow. We’re driving all the way to Vermont, remember? We decided to get a head start.
What?
The words blur. I blink hard.
Me:We had plans, Mom!!!
Mom:Sorry, honey, but we didn’t want to risk it. There’s always next year.
I give a tired, cracked laugh. “Right. Wouldn’t want to get snowed in on Christmas with your only child.”
Through the window, the tree blazes on, smug and perfect. It doesn’t care that I’ve been left out in the cold. I can see my own reflection ghosting in the windshield, eyes tired, hair frizzing from the humidity.
I text one more time?—
Me:Love you too?—
Then I throw the phone onto the passenger seat.
The screen lights up with a heart emoji.
Too late, Mom.
Way too late.
The drivethrough town doesn’t do my mood any favors.
Maple View looks exactly like it did when I was a kid and still believed the world was secretly good. String lights stretch between lampposts. A coffee shop spills golden light and laughter onto the sidewalk. In the square, a kid’s building a snowman with her dad.
Nostalgia sweeps through me.
I blink fast, pretending it’s just the glare from the snow.
The truth is, Christmas was never easy in our family. Mom and Dad couldn’t stand being in the same room for more than an hour without a fight breaking out.
I always hoped that would change one day.
And now it has, but for Mom and her new hubby—the sleazeball with the too-white teeth and the too-tight chinos.
Lorenzo’s Diner appears on the left, and my heart gives another lurch.
I should’ve just bypassed the town and driven up the other way. It’s too full of memories.
Of my childhood, yes. But also ofhim?—
The one who used to make my insides fizz whenever he walked into Lorenzo’s, where I worked as a server. The one who looked at me like he saw everything about me—and then rejected me in the most humiliating way imaginable.
I never really got over what happened. Five years later, and it still hits me like a sucker-punch.
My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “Nope,” I tell the dashboard. “Not thinking about him this holiday. We’re focusing on keeping Heather’s pets alive. That’s it.”
The road curvesinto deeper wilderness, and the snowfall thickens.
Finally, a wooden sign appears:Cedar Hollow Ridge – Private Road.I turn onto a rutted dirt road, and catch sight of the pitched roof of a cabin in the distance, a faint light showing.
When I pull up, the cabin shudders with a chorus of barks, yips and howls.
I give a little smile. At leastsomeone’sexcited to see me.
